Tag: 2024 basketball recruiting

Gators basketball to host elite PG on campus for official visit during season

One of the top point guards in the class of 2024 is planning on making an official visit to the University of Florida during the season, per reports.

The football team isn’t the only athletic program at the University of Florida busy recruiting players for the future. The basketball team is set to host one of the top point guards in the class of 2024, four-star [autotag]Dedan Thomas Jr[/autotag]., during the season, according to 247Sports.

Thomas picked up an offer from the Gators back in June, and now Cal, Gonzaga, Miami, Stanford and USC have added their names to a list of potential suitors that already included Arizona, Houston, LSU and UCLA among others. He recently made his way to Los Angeles for an unofficial visit with the Bruins, and now he’s planning out his officials.

He has Houston locked into a Sept. 30 date and expects to be at Arizona around the same time. Although he hasn’t scheduled the rest of his trips yet, Florida and Gonzaga are at the top of his list.

“The Florida trip will be probably during the season when they start conference play,” Thomas told Swamp247. “The Florida visit will be official and the Gonzaga trip probably will be official as well.”

Thomas has developed relationships with several members of the Gators’ coaching staff over the year. Associate head coach Carlin Hartman knows him from his time coaching at UNLV (Thomas is a Nevada kid), head coach Todd Golden was coaching at San Francisco when Thomas attended a camp and director of player development Taurean Green would come to some of his games before joining the UF staff.

Whether those ties pay off in the long run remains to be seen, but it’s better to have some familiarity with the staff than none at all. It’s only been two months since Florida started talking to him, but that communication seems to have gone a long way.

The 247Sports composite ranks Thomas No. 5 among point guards and as the 38th-best player in the class of 2024. The site’s individual rankings are a bit more bearish on him, ranking him 59th overall nationally and No. 8 among players at the one.

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Tigers offer 5-star small forward in 2024 class

The Tigers are throwing their hat in the ring for Liam McNeely, one of the top players in the country in the 2024 cycle.

[autotag]Liam McNeeley[/autotag] is a 6-foot-7, 190-pound small forward from Montverde Academy in Montverde, Florida. Montverde is one of the best high school basketball teams in the country, finishing last season 23-4, and it produces top college prospects every year.

McNeeley is transferring to Montverde Academy from John Paul II High School in Plano, Texas. The Cardinals finished last season 31-7 and won the TAPPS 6A State Championship with a 66-56 win over Concordia Lutheran.

Film Analysis: McNeeley is a young guy with a very smooth shot from the perimeter. He does a great job of using his length to grab rebounds and create more space on the floor on the offensive side.

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Gators get an early offer in on this rising 2024 power forward

Gators MBK offers this local lengthy basketball 2024 recruit a scholarship.

Local power forward prospect Sammie Yeaney added the Gators to his offer sheet when the team made their interest in him official with an offer on Thursday. If this bit of news slipped below your radar, don’t worry too much. Yeaney is presently unranked by the 247Sports national board, it’s very early in the 2024 recruiting cycle, and I have yet to spell his name correctly on the first try.

This isn’t the first time Yeaney has popped up in Gators news. He took an unofficial visit on campus in late June, hosted by associate head coach Carlin Hartman and incoming transfer [autotag]Alex Fudge[/autotag]. He’s familiar with the Gainesville area already, being an attendee of The Rock School, just a 20-minute drive from the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.

Nonetheless, it’s still important for the player and staff to get a feel for each other in person and show off athletic facilities. Evidently, it went well, with the offer coming just two weeks later.

Yeaney’s length is the first thing that stands out about him. He’s listed as having a 6-foot-7.5-inch frame, and as you can see in his recruiting pictures above, he’s not just a rail. That physicality has earned him some notice, and Prep Hoops recently ranked him as the second-best player in the state.

With the Gators’ offer in hand, he can boast a pretty good offer list for such an early phase in the 2024 cycle. In addition to Florida, he also has offers from ‘Bama and Texas Tech, which are impressive offers to pull down for a non-five-star prospect who is over two years away from playing his first college game.

Keep an eye on Yeaney. He’s not a star yet, but he’s local and on the rise. Those are the ingredients for a future fan favorite if he winds up wearing Orange and Blue.

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Gators making advances on this 5-star 2024 basketball recruit

Todd Golden and the gang are looking ahead to 2024 and this five-star guard.

College basketball is still months away, but the Gators’ coaching staff already have their eyes on the 2024 recruiting class. Namely, the team was recently in contact with [autotag]David Castillo[/autotag], a guard native to Oklahoma who received early five-star status.

Castillo, who participated with Team USA’s U16 squad last season, is fighting for a spot with the U17s this year. He’s a confident young man who describes himself as being well-versed in just about every skill a guard can have. His slate of offers from schools across the best conferences at such an early stage would suggest the industry has a similarly high opinion of him.

Carlin Hartman was Florida’s representative to Castillo when the parties made contact earlier this week. Hartman was a logical choice for first contact— Castillo’s family has a relationship with him already and it’s always good to see a familiar face.

Castillo reported to Swamp247 that he doesn’t know the current staff well, no surprise there, but they caught his attention enough to schedule an unofficial visit for this summer. (Florida fans will also enjoy reading that he mentioned the ’07 and ’08 championships and [autotag]Bradley Beal[/autotag]’s days as a Gator.)

Todd Golden’s recruiting team didn’t have much time to work on the class of 2023, but they managed to bring in a top-59 recruit and their results in the transfer portal were impressive. That’s an excellent foundation to bring into 2024 recruiting, where they have an opportunity to make an early splash if they make a good impression on Castillo.

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